Armenia’s “genocide” narrative pales against Azerbaijan’s reintegration march Armenian-Argentine blah

Although Azerbaijan cleared the Garabagh region of separatists and intensified the reintegration of the region’s ethnic Armenian minority into the local society, there are still malicious persons talking about a fictional “genocide” in Garabagh.

For the “genocide” mouthpieces, the narrative’s antagonist is obviously Azerbaijan. They think the Armenian residents of Garabagh have been facing the “second genocide” in the history of this small nation. Despite absence of facts, the fanatics are still on the horizon attempting to sell their fabricated story.

Gassia Apkarian, a judge of the Superior Court of Orange County in California, has recently popped up on Armenian Civilnet media outlet’s studio to spew anti-Azerbaijan remarks, including those about the bogus “genocide” in Garabagh.

Apkarian vented details, in fact, allegations, about the events going on in the Azerbaijani region to blew more air into the “genocide” balloon.

Gassia Apkarian 

Along with playing the traditional victim, she also disclosed behind-the-scene episodes of the collaboration with an Argentine lawyer for preparing a biased report to accuse Azerbaijan of what it has not been doing.

The collaborator of Apkarian was Luis Moreno Ocampo, a 71-year-old South American jurisconsult, who has recently presented a kind of report about the alleged “genocidal acts” by Azerbaijan against the Armenian minority in Garabagh upon a request from Arayik Harutunyan, a former “president” of the collapsed separatist regime in Garabagh.

By the way, Harutunyan was arrested on October 3 by the Azerbaijani State Security Service employees in Khankendi. Ocampo’s “sponsor president” is now a suspect of bloody crimes against Azerbaijanis, including deadly missile strikes three years ago.

“It was in July of this year Luis Moreno Ocampo contacted me and he said […] this is genocide. And I said, OK, I think it is genocide, you think it is genocide. Can we prove it?” Apkarian told Civilnet anchor.

According to her, it took twelve hours for them to formulate a “legal opinion” about the fallacious “genocide” of ethnic Armenians in Garabagh, which became immediately public.

Apkarian said the teamwork of her and Ocampo to libel Azerbaijan took place during the so-called “blockade” of Garabagh. By the way, the term “blockade” here probably explains the mock-up “starvation” stories created by the Armenians despite the abundant food hidden in storehouses by the separatist junta leaders.

Luis Moreno Ocampo

So, Apkarian says she was impressed by Ocampo’s “commitment to the proof of the genocide” and his understanding of the “heaviness of this responsibility”.

The half-day long Ocampo-Akparian blah ended in a joint decision to label the events in Garabagh as “genocide”, according to the latter.

Ocampo’s blinders

When the elderly lawyer from Argentina partnered Apkarian to prepare a tautologic report about Garabagh, the entrance to the region was under the all-out control of Azerbaijan. In April, Baku established a border control point to stop the Lachin road’s exploitation for the armament of the separatists in Garabagh.

However, the road was completely open for humanitarian movements. Armenians shuttled freely between Garabagh and Armenia following a short passport control procedure. Moreover, the convoys of the International Committee of the Red Cross traveled to Garabagh and back free of hindrance.

At least 4,000 ethnic Armenians crossed the Azerbaijani border into Armenia and back through the Lachin border checkpoint, according to the data published by the government of Azerbaijan.

If it is “genocide”, we should look for another stronger term for the mass killing of 613 Azerbaijanis by Armenians in Khojaly during the First Garabagh War in 1992. There were not allowed to flee, but ambushed and massacred. Some of them were taken as hostages, some went missing. A total of 30,000 Azerbaijanis were killed during Armenia’s invasion in 1991-1994. The fate of nearly 4,000 is still unknown. There were no ICRC aid reaching them. There was not Ocampo to speak about their survival struggle in a report.

Apkarian’s repetition of Ocampo’s blah came amidst the voluntary departure of ethnic Armenians from Azerbaijan’s Garabagh region. Armenians de-facto determined their fate following the successful anti-terror measures of the Azerbaijan Armed Forces in Garabagh - shortly after the terrorist hunt of the Azerbaijani military surrendering the separatists, they began to voluntarily leave the Azerbaijani region.

Indeed, the Azerbaijani government officially called to stay and reintegrate. Moreover, Baku allowed a UN fact-finding mission in to closely monitor the evets. There have been no credible reports of harm coming to Armenian residents of Garabagh. A reporter for Al Jazeera said the people of Khankendi, the central city of Garabagh, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers, stated they have not been forced out of their houses and have not faced any human rights abuses by the Azerbaijani side.

The authorities of Azerbaijan hosted the representatives of Garabagh’s Armenian minority in three separate meetings after the counter-terrorist campaign to discuss their reintegration into the local society. Baku’s special representative submitted reintegration plans and additional humanitarian assistance programs.

A meeting between the Azerbaijani president's special representative and representatives of Garabagh's Armenian minority, Yevlakh, Azerbaijan, September 21, 2023

The Azerbaijani government ordered the State Migration Service to register the region’s ethnic Armenian residents to ensure their sustainable reintegration into the Azerbaijani society in line with the laws and Constitution of Azerbaijan.

Last week, a special government portal was launched to facilitate the reintegration process. The online platform in four languages – Azerbaijani, Armenian, English, and Russian – enables voluntary registration for ethnic Armenians wishing to live in the region in line with the laws and Constitution of Azerbaijan.

Moreover, tens of tons of humanitarian aid, containing food, hygiene products, beddings, and medicaments, have been supplied to the Garabagh Armenians by the Azerbaijani government.

Gwynne Dyer, a British-Canadian military historian and journalist, wrote in his recent opinion on The Free Press that there’s no killing of Armenians going on in Garabagh and it is not genocide. According to him, Armenians arrive in their own cars, piled high with their belongings, and claim that they have been ethnically cleansed, but they don’t tell tales of horror and there’s nobody chasing them.

“It’s not a lot to work with, but [Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinyan has to go with what he’s got, so he says ‘ethnic cleansing’ and leaves it to ‘useful idiots’ elsewhere (like Moreno Campo) to say ‘genocide.’ But saying it doesn’t make it true,” Dyer states.

Going with Dyer’s rhetoric, many “useful idiots” have been trumpeting Armenian lies against Azerbaijan and many will likely emerge on the horizon to follow the same path. But when the truth is solid, it absolutely boomerangs liars back to their dens.